For most of the morning, everything was fairly routine for 10-year-old Anna Scherling and her hockey teammates leading up to their game Saturday at St. Cloud's Municipal Athletic Complex.

However, after the national anthem faded, instead of getting ready to play skaters were asked to stay on the ice for a special guest. That guest happened to be Anna's father, Bill, who'd been deployed to Kuwait in August.

Within seconds, Anna and her older sister, Sami, 12, were back in their father's arms for the first time in months.

"It was really surprising. I'm really glad," Anna Scherling said. "I was really shocked and then I went and gave him a hug," added Sami Scherling.

Bill Scherling, who lives in Otsego with his family and has served in the military for more than two decades, is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves. Twenty-one years of service resulted in three separate deployments - most recently to Kuwait, but also to Afghanistan and Bosnia. Twenty-one years of marriage to his wife, Toni, has resulted in three children, Anna, Sami, and 17-year-old Kassie, who greeted her father at the airport with flowers and balloons when he returned home earlier this week.

"(They were) obviously surprised," said Bill Scherling of his daughters' reactions. "The youngest might have been a little bit more shocked."

Once that initial shock wore off, it allowed unabashed happiness to shine through for the sisters. "Our  whole family is together now," Anna Scherling said. "...I feel happy because now my family is complete."

The cherry on top of an already sweet homecoming? Anna's team won 3-1 and she scored a goal. She said it was because, with her entire family in attendance, she had some extra motivation.